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[Game of Thrones] Compare/contrast the TV Show and Book here, not in the other thread!

Posts

was it ever official in the books that Stannis and Melisandre were banging?

I had assumed so but I don't think we're ever explicitly told that. Not that I mind, as the actress is very nice

General season 2: I am extremely pleased with Stannis. The show creators have done a great job laying Stannis' lawful neutralness bare with very little screentime. One thing with the show is I wish they had "Extended cuts" of each episode for the dvd/br release

It is HEAVILY implied, when she and Davos go on their trip to kill the knight defending Storm's End. But I don't think stated outright. The subtlety is about at the level of "nudge nudge wink wink say no more" though.

My memory is that it's heavily implied they had sex to make the crazy shadow-baby-killer-things, but that whether they just had sex regularly is sort of vaguely potentially implied only.

I'm not sure how I feel about Stannis and Melisandre explicitly boning like that in the show. In the books, I always got the sense that she drew on his "life force", if you will to create her shadow creatures, and maybe this process was sexual in nature...but I always interpreted Stannis as not being fully aware of this. Like, she did it while he was sleeping or something. It just seems like it would go against his principles to cheat on his wife.

was it ever official in the books that Stannis and Melisandre were banging?

I had assumed so but I don't think we're ever explicitly told that. Not that I mind, as the actress is very nice

General season 2: I am extremely pleased with Stannis. The show creators have done a great job laying Stannis' lawful neutralness bare with very little screentime. One thing with the show is I wish they had "Extended cuts" of each episode for the dvd/br release

It is HEAVILY implied, when she and Davos go on their trip to kill the knight defending Storm's End. But I don't think stated outright. The subtlety is about at the level of "nudge nudge wink wink say no more" though.

My memory is that it's heavily implied they had sex to make the crazy shadow-baby-killer-things, but that whether they just had sex regularly is sort of vaguely potentially implied only.

I'm not sure how I feel about Stannis and Melisandre explicitly boning like that in the show. In the books, I always got the sense that she drew on his "life force", if you will to create her shadow creatures, and maybe this process was sexual in nature...but I always interpreted Stannis as not being fully aware of this. Like, she did it while he was sleeping or something. It just seems like it would go against his principles to cheat on his wife.

If anything, his wife is probably encouraging it. She really buys into the whole Lord of Light thing.

Yeah, I mean, when someone comments on how littlefinger is acting differently on the TV show, I don't want the response to be "well in book 5..." - this really is just comparing the differences in the two mediums, for as much as we have of the TV show.

So we can talk about the Joffrey/Cersei, Littlefinger/Cersei scenes in episode 1 that didn't happen in book 2?

Yup! That's actually one of the main points of this thread that caused it to break off from the TV show thread: the things that are fabricated specifically for the TV show, and talking about if they fit the image we got from the book. There's a decent amount of "filling in" that the TV show needs to do because it has limitations the novels did not.

This thread is intended to be safe for TV viewers who aren't reading ahead; the regular thread is pretty wild with spoilers for books 3-5.

I am not dealing with figuring out which of three fucking threads I am supposed to post in, so I am just going to talk about shit in here and if you get spoiled it is your own fucking fault for reading about it on the internet

If you would like to talk about the book series as a whole, or would like to refer to books beyond where the plot of the TV show is in any way, you want to go to the book thread.

If you would like to talk about the TV series as a TV series in a universe as if the book series did not exist, you want to go to the TV show thread. Which helpfully includes the line "NO BOOKS" in the title.

If you would like to discuss how the books and TV show differ in a spoiler safe environment, you want this here thread.

If you ignore that, you deserve all the infractions you'll be getting in the future.

I don't think the show did enough to emphasize just how large a man Gregor is. His only real contrast was against Loras, who is a 96 pound twink, and the Hound, who is a very large man himself. That and I think the show is losing all the subtlety of the books.

The show seems to discard pretty much all of the interesting small details that I liked about the first book's best moments.

On the subject of appearances:
Meli looks great.
Stannis looks great.
Davos looks thicker-set than I was expecting; given his past, I expected a rather thinner guy.
Ser Dontos looks super-different; I wasn't expecting mutton-chops and portliness at all there.
Craster is surprisingly well groomed for a daughter-fucking wildling dickbag. Like others, I was expecting closer to Frey for Craster.

And yeah, Littlefinger is being played so overtly in the TV series compared to how he is in the books. Very strange, especially given who he's taunting. He can taunt Varys because he knows he's better than Varys; Cersei on the other hand he should already know is a cagey bitch when she's insulted...

Thinks he's better than Varys. Varys is one of the most effective people on the damn continent.

I agree that this thread is pointless because I'm pretty sure most people who read the books at all have read all 5.

Maybe. But I'm still on four. But I'm working my way through all five, rather than trying to "keep up" with the show.

That said, I poked my head in here hoping it might be interesting, but I don't suspect it will be. I think we ought to accept that you need to either finish up the books and venture into the book thread, or stick to the TV thread and accept that you don't really get to compare and contrast. Having two threads is bad enough, but understandable and (I'd argue) necessary. A third? Getting a bit ridiculous. I was readly to dismiss Salvation122 because he had (IIRC) the same attitude in the TV thread. But...I think he's right here.

But I'll leave it there. Sorry to continue the off-topic conversation, but I figure this debate will die down after a page or two anyway and this thread can go on to thrive as the show goes on. Or, it'll get stabbed to death like the little dark-haired bastard baby it is.

I don't see any difference with Sansa in the show and Sansa in the books.

Except we aren't seeing her inner monologue which helps make her less annoying. Barely. She was pretty intolerable in season one (to Sophie Turner's credit).

Yeah, I don't get all the Sansa hate. Admittedly, the EARLY chapters with her were kind of lame with the "Oh, la la, I'm gonna marry a Prince. My sister is dirty and stupid. I like sewing" into unhinged PTSD Sansa, which you kinda get in the show, but was pretty dramatic/compelling in the book.

Spoilering the paraphrased bits that made me dislike her in the off chance that people want to complain:

"I'm going to show how loyal I am to Joffrey and screw over Arya, oh no, that got my wolf killed!"
"I'm going to show how loyal I am to Joffrey and screw over my dad, oh no that got my dad killed!"
"I'm not going to be Queen anymore, oh woe is me, please pity me!"

It didn't help when I was turning the page from a Daenarys, Jon, or Robb chapter where there was interesting stuff going on right into yet another friggen Sansa chapter

I don't see any difference with Sansa in the show and Sansa in the books.

Except we aren't seeing her inner monologue which helps make her less annoying. Barely. She was pretty intolerable in season one (to Sophie Turner's credit).

Yeah, I don't get all the Sansa hate. Admittedly, the EARLY chapters with her were kind of lame with the "Oh, la la, I'm gonna marry a Prince. My sister is dirty and stupid. I like sewing" into unhinged PTSD Sansa, which you kinda get in the show, but was pretty dramatic/compelling in the book.

Spoilering the paraphrased bits that made me dislike her in the off chance that people want to complain:

"I'm going to show how loyal I am to Joffrey and screw over Arya, oh no, that got my wolf killed!"
"I'm going to show how loyal I am to Joffrey and screw over my dad, oh no that got my dad killed!"
"I'm not going to be Queen anymore, oh woe is me, please pity me!"

It didn't help when I was turning the page from a Daenarys, Jon, or Robb chapter where there was interesting stuff going on right into yet another friggen Sansa chapter

I hated Sansa's chapters. She's much better in the show than in the books because she doesnt get her dad killed.

It's simple: people who watched the TV series and were curious about how it differs from the books, what different choices it makes etc., were told that the TV series thread isn't the right place for comparisons. The book thread is full of spoilers up to the most recent volume in the series. Hence this thread.

Personally I think it's silly to say that any mention of the books in the TV thread is off limits - but if that's how it is, it makes sense to have a place where you can find out about what the books do differently without being spoiled on what happens three volumes down the line.

"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods

It's simple: people who watched the TV series and were curious about how it differs from the books, what different choices it makes etc., were told that the TV series thread isn't the right place for comparisons. The book thread is full of spoilers up to the most recent volume in the series. Hence this thread.

Personally I think it's silly to say that any mention of the books in the TV thread is off limits - but if that's how it is, it makes sense to have a place where you can find out about what the books do differently without being spoiled on what happens three volumes down the line.

The issue with discussing the books in the tv thread came about because people were being fucking idiots and spoiling the tv series for people just watching it. Honestly, this thread would be silly except that people still can't discuss the books properly in the old thread because they are still idiots.

It's simple: people who watched the TV series and were curious about how it differs from the books, what different choices it makes etc., were told that the TV series thread isn't the right place for comparisons. The book thread is full of spoilers up to the most recent volume in the series. Hence this thread.

Personally I think it's silly to say that any mention of the books in the TV thread is off limits - but if that's how it is, it makes sense to have a place where you can find out about what the books do differently without being spoiled on what happens three volumes down the line.

The issue with discussing the books in the tv thread came about because people were being fucking idiots and spoiling the tv series for people just watching it. Honestly, this thread would be silly except that people still can't discuss the books properly in the old thread because they are still idiots.

While I agree with the sentiment, there were people in the TV thread getting really upset at Syndalis and I for discussing Daenerys' relationship with Drogo and how it differed from the books. That's nowhere close to being spoilery. Comparing past events in the show to past events in the book is something that isn't worth getting upset about. I think having three threads for this series is a bit overkill, but if the mods let us have it, sounds good.

I personally feel we need to split the "how many threads do we need" discussion into its own thread.

As for changes made, Theon's sex scene was all wrong. He was meant to get some head, we lost all the clever dialogue about how semen tastes salty. I wish they would just stick to the source material.

The scene served the exact same purpose though that it did in the book. Namely that Theon is a fucking asshole, is the fucking worst, and pretty much was using her as little more than a hole until he got home.

I stopped listening to the audiobook for a couple months after that scene - it had the GRRM level of disgusting pervishness that was only cranked up to 11 when an old man with a gravelly voice is saying it.